1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for acquiring demographic information. More specifically, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for obtaining demographic information at the point of sale of goods or services.
2. Discussion of Background
In the competitive marketplace, the capacity for assessing trends is important for strong financial growth. Consumer demographics associated with purchasing is a strong variable for directing the advertising focus in a specific market and manufacturing production rates and direction. Gathering information about consumers of goods and services is important for assessing preference for and satisfaction with those goods and services. Customer feedback is important to manufacturers as input for future products and for assessing trends in developing markets. Consumer demographic information is available from a variety of sources including, for example, the U.S. Census, telephone surveys, or questionnaires that accompany products.
Manufacturers receive data about purchases from fluctuations in inventory and from survey cards returned by consumers. Purchasing data and consumer demographic information are extracted, compiled, and correlated into reports that help in evaluating market trends. Although such reports are helpful, the time and cost in gathering this data limit their value. There remains a need for obtaining information as close to the point of sale as possible that correlates the product purchase to the demographic characteristics of the consumer, that is convenient and cost effective.
Bar code readers are in widespread use in product purchasing. U.S. Pat. No. 5,047,614 granted to Bianco describes a computer-aided shopping method and apparatus. In this method, a consumer uses a portable bar-code scanner to assemble a desired list of items to purchase. The recorded information is forwarded to the merchant for processing and subsequent, delivery of the listed items. In addition to quickly identifying a product for association with a computer-stored price, readers are known to perform comparison tasks. U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,281, granted to Johnsen, et al compares coupons through an encoding and decoding process. Coupons are presented by customers and compared against a master list to prevent repeated redemptions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,761, granted to Tai determines the success of advertising efforts from coded, redeemed coupons. Encoded coupons are delivered to selected households and the redeemed coupons are used to refine an original list of potential customers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,752,675, granted to Zetmeir compares coded advertising material submitted from potential customers with the initial direct mailing effort to assess the effectiveness of mass advertising.
There is yet to be a system that gathers timely demographic information by a quick and inexpensive procedure as feedback to product developers and manufacturers.